Nury Vittachi: The Feng Shui Detective

For the next few minutes, there were complex and high-octane negotiations between Porntip and the face behind the door. During this, the Thai businessman and the small, squat face in the door gave several pointed glances at Joyce. Porntip was evidently trying to get permission for the young woman to enter on the grounds that she was a professional consultant. They could tell from his hardened face at the end of the discussion that the outcome had been unsuccessful.

‘He says we and Bin can go in, but not the child.’

She blinked. ‘You don’t mean me?’

‘Yes, he means her,’ Porntip said.

‘I am a woman of nearly eighteen years old,’ she spat, her forehead turning into an angry map of lines. ‘THAT is a child.’ She gestured at Porntip’s short, tousle-headed nephew, who looked very much younger than she did.

‘Adolescence for women continues until twenty-four according to the tradition of this house,’ said Porntip. ‘Boys become adults at thirteen. I’m sorry, she is a woman and child, so she won’t be able to enter.’

‘That’s so dumb,’ snapped Joyce.

‘Why don’t you go shopping? There are some very nice tourist shops about an hour’s drive from here,’ said Porntip. ‘I can give you my nephew to guide you if you like.’

This was a bad idea on Porntip’s part, Wong knew. If there was anything Joyce McQuinnie hated, it was the assumption that she was a shopping addict-particularly since it was true.

‘I didn’t come here to shop,’ she lied, icily.

‘No time for that. Got your lo pan and books?’ Wong asked, taking her arm and pointing to the distance. ‘I do in side of the temple grounds and you do outside. Many, many influences here, I can see. Look at those trees. And that pointed thing there. You have a lot to do, Joyce. You will be more busy than me even. We meet again here in two hours. Okay or not?’

‘Yeah, guess so,’ she said, partly mollified by being taken seriously. She accepted the notebook he handed her.

‘Ask Mr Porntip to go with you, okay or not?’

‘No, I’ll be okay by myself, thank you.’

‘Bin can help. See you in two hours.’

Bin tilted his head to one side and gave her a toothy grin. ‘You like pirate CDs?’ he said. ‘Original artist, only 2 US dollars. Also software. Windows Office latest one. Tomb Raider III. Movies.’

‘Where?’ said Joyce.

‘Follow,’ said Bin.

Wong stepped through the door and was welcomed by a bulky man in a robe. The inside of the temple grounds were very similar to the modern Vietnamese temples he had seen tourists swarm all over-the only difference was that the tourist traps seemed more holy. More money flowed around and through them, and there was more motivation to make them visually conform to expectations, Wong mused. In contrast closed holy houses such as this were clean, dull and rather featureless.

His escort, who introduced himself as Brother Wasuran, explained that Master Tran had been summoned to a meeting of a Buddhist organisation in Saigon and would not be back until the evening or even the following morning.

‘Never mind,’ said Wong. ‘Always a great pleasure to spend time in a monkey-house like this.’

Although not attractive, the premises were functional. There was a large central courtyard with the objects of veneration in a building in the centre. The middle of the space was shared with a large bo tree, said to have been grown from a sprig of the tree under which Siddharta Gautama had sat. Over to the west was a rather dry, dusty garden, and to the east and the north were some rows of low buildings where the monks’ sleeping cells were. A training block stood to the south, and just next to it were the offices and the private rooms of the senior monks. Everything was a faded red.

‘Already can see problems,’ said Wong, peering into one of the cells of the northern sleeping block. ‘Sleep rooms are in north of grounds. They are entered by door facing northeast. But beds are pointing south. All this not a good combination. North is good for bedrooms for man and wife. Good for sex. But very bad for monks with no woman. I think can fix. Definitely have to move beds. Also maybe move door to sleeping block. And paint colour is no good. Must change. All paint colours.’

The geomancer stepped towards the middle of the courtyard and cast his eyes around again, then tapped his lo pan. ‘Also, garden in the west. I think that was not there before, is it?’

‘No, there used to be a shed for the carts there, but it fell down. We cleared it and turned it into a vegetable garden about two years ago,’ said Brother Wasuran, a rotund man of about forty, with a raspy voice and a neanderthal brow.

‘Plants are alive. Have very special sort of energy. Must be placed carefully. Can be very good. But now are in southwest. This is direction of soil ch’i. Not so good. Need make some changes there also.’

Wong was busy scratching notes into his pad when it occurred to him that he had not asked whether there was a specific issue which had to be resolved. Master Tran had explained in his letter that he was worried about ‘a general air of malingering and delinquency’, neither of which were words he understood, even after looking them up. ‘Is there some big problem I must fix?’ he asked. ‘What did Master Tran want me to do?’

‘There are lots of problems. He did not tell me exactly what to tell you. I think generally there is some unhappiness among the brothers. Twice we have found liquor bottles hidden in dark places. Once we found a magazine showing shocking indecent pictures and writings about, you know, man-woman relations and such things. We also found a case of 2000 cigarettes, and a television machine, you know, what do you call it? A video machine? We could not work out how it had come into the vihara, because the brothers do not go in and out very much, and we keep a careful watch on the door at all times.’

‘I see. Have many problems.’

‘There are other problems. We have many rats in the temple now. Hard to sleep. They live in the roof, run, run at night, very noisy,’ he rasped.

Wong made careful notes. He spoke to Wasuran as he scribbled. ‘Harmony is very important. Hsun Tzu said: “The stars go round; the sun and moon shine in turn; the four seasons come one after another; the yin and the yang go through their changes; wind and rain are widely distributed; all thing acquire harmony and have their lives.”’

‘It is so.’

‘Your problems: any more?’

‘Yes. I think Master Tran was worried because three men asked to leave. They want to stop being brothers, get married, they say. We think one of them must have brought the video machine and the bad magazine into the place, but no one admits it.’

‘What name?’

‘The men?’

‘No. The magazine.’

‘It was called Australian Women’s Weekly. Many things about love and conjugal things. Shocking.’

CF Wong and Joyce McQuinnie spent the afternoon working at a dining table in a nearby restaurant. After Porntip had introduced them as consultants working for the vihara, the owner was happy to attract good karma by letting them use the place in the lull between the midday and evening rush periods.

The assignment was turning out to be an enjoyable challenge. Joyce had bought some CDs, which put her in a good mood, and then efficiently mapped out the area surrounding the temple. She had discovered some major elements that needed to be taken into consideration: a village well, due south of the temple, a coffin shop to the northeast, and an electricity pylon, almost facing the front gate, albeit a long way off.